Bike rentals in London 27
An analysis of what affects rental numbers and how the bikes are used.
2010 - 2022
The bike sharing program in numbers
- 800+ docking stations
- 12000+ bikes
- Operating since 2010
Dataset
Datasets of bike rentals, weather data, covid data were used concerning london. Published by various british authorities.
The map
Bike station locations with sum of incoming and outgoing bikes over the span of 10 days in August 2016
What influences someone to rent a bike?
Main contributor: weather
The first map shows the number of cycle hires day by day. While the second map displays the air temperatures in London. Notice the dips at winter, and bumps in summer.
Other weather effects?
Most of the weather influence can be attributed to the change of seasons. More sunshine and less rain means more bikers! In this barchart, the farther away is the value from 0, the more influence it has on the bike rental numbers. Red values are negatively correlated, while green values are positively correlated.
More of a relaxing activity ... Or is it?
Here is one more graph to drive home the seasonal nature of the bike rental numbers: This graph shows the rental numbers per season. Moreover, in the weekends people also tend to use the bikes more. A relaxing activity! But what are those 2 days where much more bikes were rented than usual? Turns out, on these days, the employees of the london metro system organized a strike, and the whole metro system was stopped on these 2 days. People took up bikes instead!
Impact of covid
Do covid cases have impact on the bike rentals?
Compare the two following plots. One is about the rentals during the covid period until recently (2020-3 to 2022-2), then the other one is about the number of covid cases through London. So do the cases interrupt the bike rental patterns? There is a weak negative correlation between the cases and the rental numbers, but thats more of a coincidence that covid happens to spread more when people bike less.
Cases did cause lockdowns 2
However, rise in covid cases causes lockdowns, which does directly affect the rental numbers. Check the following dates. There is a noticeable drop in rents after the first lockdown and remote work rules reestablished.